Expat wanderer

Two months ago, one of my regular readers Elementary Teacher who has a fascinating blog about teaching elementary school in a Middle Eastern country, wrote to me and told me that when I set up my blog page, I forgot to add back in the widget for Meta, which contained the RSS feed.

The truth is, I still don’t know entirely what that means, but I did as she suggested, and added the Meta back in.

And watched as my visitors nearly doubled overnight.

Who knew?

There is so much I am still learning, and I thank all of you who write to be, back channels, and give me hints. Thank you, especially, Elementary Teacher for your kindness in sharing such good information. I really enjoy reading your blog!

Growing up on the west coast of the USA is like growing up in an international zone. When I was very little, in Alaska, we had lots of Scandinavian foods, along with – no, I am not kidding – mooseburgers, deer, fresh shrimp and king crab, lots of clams, and of course, salmon and halibut. Our Dads would go out in hunting season, and alternated garages for the cleaning and cutting up of the deer. We would get the eyes or tail to take to school for show-and-tell. Yeh, it sounds gross now, but we were kids, and it was a part of our life.

We waited to be 10 years old, when we could go to Rifle Club and learn to shoot. You can’t imagine how delighted I am to see a Women’s team in Kuwait, top-notch riflewomen!

In Seattle, there have always been huge communities of immigrants. One community, Ballard, is – or was – primarily Scandinavian, mostly Norwegian. (I had to look up the spelling on that one!) There is an area called Chinatown – the more politically correct call it the international district, and now, it is truly international, with Vietnamese, Ethiopian, Gambian, Nigerian, Cambodian, etc.

I don’t know exactly when I came to associate miso soup with good health, but last night, I had a small dinner planned, and Adventure Man said “Why don’t you let me bring you some miso soup?” He knows miso soup is one of my comfort foods when I am sick.

I was so sick, nothing sounded good to me. Better, though, that he bring me something than that I have to get up and cook!

He brought the miso soup. I didn’t even want to eat it, but I did. Then, before he had even finished his dinner, I excused myself, went back to bed and slept for three hours, really slept. Until then, I had been sleeping fitfully, waking often, never feeling rested.

At 10:30 I woke up and felt . . . better! I chatted with Adventure Man, took care of a few things, then went back to bed and slept peacefully through the night.

Today – I am not totally well, but I am mostly well. Thanks be to God, and . . . Miso soup!